It's About Faith

We watched Ben Stein's "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" last night. We have a subscription to Netflix now and it's allowing us to get films that we otherwise might not bother to see because we're not having to pay 4 or 5 dollars a piece to see them.

If you haven't seen this film. I highly, highly recommend it. I know I'm coming from a belief system that probably allowed me to easily receive what the film was saying, but I was really impressed with Ben Stein's methods and questions. He did not seem biased or close-minded to me and often tried to assume the point of view of the majority, only to find a different truth.

I must say that the opening sequence with footage of the Berlin wall and other interspersed footage throughout of clips ranging from a bully sitting on a young boy, to men slapping one another, to Nazi Germany were a bit overkill if the makers of the film were hoping that those not already persuaded that Intelligent Design is a valid theory would watch and not be offended. In other words, I think that those not in his camp, Ben Stein immediately offended by his satire and metaphors instead of gently bringing everyone together on a journey of discovery.

Some random things that struck me:

There is a point in the film toward the end where a certain evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, reads a section from his book "The God Delusion" describing the Judeo-Christian God as all sorts of awful things like homophobic, murderous and other evil adjectives. He also assures Ben Stein that he believes in no gods whatsoever. If taken to it's end, this belief means that life is merely happenstance and a series of accidents, there is nothing beyond it to live for and therefore, no reason to behave a certain way, deny ourselves whatever we want, or have any regard for any other of the meaningless human lives around us. The conclusion that I reach from this is that there is no point in criticizing the God you do not believe in by calling Him evil. If there is no God, there is no good and there is no evil and no moral standard. So the God you do not believe in can not be evil. Do you see what I see? The belief that there is no God almost implodes upon itself. If you want to believe there is no God for other reasons, then fine, but don't call His character into question. You have nothing by which to judge it if He does not exist.

There was also a fabulous section of the film where they show animations of a typical cell's inner workings. It was like worship just to look at it. Incredible. Phenomenal! Words can't describe the awe which I felt. It's been a long time since I learned about the parts of a cell and it was a good review in why our God is so great. Many scientists have staked their entire belief system on a one in several trillion chance of just the right order of proteins coming together to even make the first one-celled organism. What strong faith they have in their theory!

No one Ben Stein interviewed could tell him empirically the origin of life. (of course) It takes faith to believe what no one was there to see for themselves.